I'm a chemistry undergrad and I tend to learn better when I understand the concepts behind things instead of rote repetition. As a result of this, I always have questions.

There are times when I don't understand a concept, I'll ask questions. If, after a line of questioning, I still don't understand something, I'll just concede and say, "Oh wow! I totally get it now! Thanks!"

I do this because I:

• want to avoid wasting class time
• don't want the lecturer to feel like maybe they've done a poor job of explaining when perhaps I'm just not grokking an underlying principle.
• don't want to other students to think, "Wow, what's her deal? She is not getting this, is she?"

However, this prevents me from learning. Because of my second bullet, even when I ask a professor in a one-on-one scenario and am just not understanding, I still do this "I totally get it! K thx bai!"

I feel like if I just say, "I don't get it," and ask the same thing over again, it gets circular and we don't get anywhere and I'm worried I'll frustrate my professor.

Is there a better way to handle this or is this just a sign that I need to seek an additional resource for learning (ie. a different textbook, Khan academy, etc...)? I do use alternative resources, but am hoping I can figure out:

• Is "giving up" in order to exit a continuous loop on non-understanding fair to me? The professor will clearly think I'm fine and that I've moved on from it.
• Is it fair to the professor who may potentially learn from it as well? For example, other students may be making similar mistakes built on a false premise the professor could easily clear up.
• I've potentially robbed myself of a learning opportunity if there is a better way to exit the conversation. What better strategies could I use?

Perhaps if I admitted (somehow) that I'm not understanding something, the professor might say, "You know who might explain it differently! Dr. ____" or "a really great resource is ___."

But I don't know how to get to that point. I don't want to just say, "Yeah, I'm not getting it, so what now?" I feel like that would be so incredibly rude!

Edit: I don't repeat a question continuously. I try to attack a problem from various angles, but sometimes I get in these situations where I feel the back and forth isn't working out or by listening to an answer, I learn a detail that confuses me more. In this case, I can say, "Wait, so why are you using A to compute B, when earlier we used C to compute B?" But in these cases, sometimes this leads to further backpedaling and confusion.